Speaker. today. as part of the Congressional Vigil for Soviet Jewry. I would like to call the attention of my colleagues to the plight of Mikhail and Eugenia Kalendarev and their son Boris. They are refuseniksthose who have asked for and been denied a visa to leave the Soviet Unionand live the hard life of nonpersons in a totalitarian regime. Today. we must keep faith with the Kalendarevs and thousands more refuseniks. It is only through the efforts of those who can still speak and travel freely that the refuseniks can have any hope of joining their friends and relatives who live in freedom. The Kalendarevs were design engineers in the Soviet Uniona wellrespected and wellpaid professionwhen they applied for exit visas in November 1973. They were refused not once. but twice. and told they would have to wait 10 years before their application would even be considered. What befell them after that is all too typical of refuseniksMikhail was demoted and forced to change his place of work.
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